But if that's what it takes to praise You Jesus...

Hopefully this is just a quick post...

Matthew 7:14 - 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Matthew 11:28-30 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Matthew 19:27 - Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”
Mark 10:28 - Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.”
Luke 18:28 - "And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.”

Context: Jesus just told the rich young man that he needed to go and sell all he had to the poor. The rich man "went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions."

Then Jesus and the disciples talk about how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

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First of all, I don't know if Peter was actually sad about how he left everything for Jesus. Maybe he was just asking in anticipation. I don't know for sure...haha help...XD

Wooo love this song!

This is found in:

2 Samuel 22:2-4
2 He said,
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
3 my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold and my refuge,
my savior; you save me from violence.
4 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.

and

Pslam 18:1-3

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.

I love the descriptions...

ROCK: In whom I take refuge, solid as a rock, definite, unwavering, steadfast. Why should we worry when we got the rock as our foundation? Should we worry about our house falling apart, the world falling apart? our lives falling apart? Nah man, we are resting on the ROCK, relying on the ROCK, depending on the ROCK. Will something solid, definite unwavering, steadfast, never breaking, never falling, never failing, fail us? NOPE! In our times of trouble, the problem of sin mainly, we can truly rest and rely on God. And He has proven Himself reliable, trustworthy, and faithful through the gospel, by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins, that only through faith in Jesus, reliance on God are we saved. Not by our own works, wavering works, indefinite works, prone-to-fail works, imperfect works, below-average works, not by the works of the fallible man, but through faith in the infallible GOD. Perfect, steady and firm, we can rely, rest, trust, and depend on GOD, our ROCK.

FORTRESS: stronghold, defensive structure. Where do we turn when we are under attack? When we need help, safety? our FORTRESS! We know...we know that we are safe. In times of uncertainty, despair, hopelessness, we are safe here with God. God will take care of us. He is in control.

DELIVERER: He rescued me, saved me from sin through the sin-atoning death of Jesus. In times of trouble, God is our deliverer, He gets us out of trouble and succeeds. He gets it done. He delivers!

SHIELD: What does a shield do? It protects us. Protects us from wounds, harm, injury, destruction, and God does that as our shield. He shields us from evil, from sin through the gospel. He shields us from destruction, the enemy. In war, battle, everyday life, we know that God is protecting us.

HORN OF MY SALVATION: This is kinda unclear honestly speaking, but horn in this context is often viewed like the horn of a bull, as strength, and a gorger of enemies, of sin. Nevertheless,
we know that God is all for our salvation, He will save.

STRONGHOLD: Similar to fortress, we know that we can rely on Him and find rest, safety, strong defense, safeguard, and security.

As God as our Father, and we as His children, how assuring are these words, how encouraging are these words. No longer do we have to rely on our own strength which always fails (Romans 3:23); now we can rely, depend, rest, like children on our Heavenly Father, who has proven Himself rich in righteousness, founder (Jesus) of our salvation, redeemer of our dead-in-sin state, firm, mighty, strong, and trustworthy. God is glorified! God is glorious!

20Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.

21His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.

Hmm do you think this could be where we got the word "jubilee" ?? eh eh? haha sike idk...maybe lyres and pipes have nothing to do with the word "jubilee"

"...So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” 13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue..."

Context: It's Israel vs Philistines and Saul is king, Samuel is the seer, or the prophet. Saul was at Gilgal and I think the Philistines were at Michmash, to the east of Beth-aven. Saul was waiting for Samuel to come and then offer the sacrifice, I think under Samuel's authority. Saul's motive for the sacrifice was to "sought out the favor of the Lord" (v. 12).

According to the above passage we see that Saul "forced" the offering of the burnt offering and according to Samuel, it was "foolish" and disobedient.

But WHY?? Why was it forced?

"...And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you (Samuel) did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, 12 I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’..."

"When I saw" (Got this from my Bible's notes, The Reformation Study Bible)

Basically Saul was like, "Oh no people are leaving, ahh how are we gonna win now? I need to do something cause the Philistines are coming soon"

(The second part about what Saul said, "I have not sought the favor of the Lord,"

I honestly think that Saul said that because he was responding to Samuel and needed to find some legit excuse why he forced the offering, some legit spiritual-related or God-related excuse so that Samuel would partially say in his mind, "Oh I see, you just wanted the favor of the Lord, that's good of you." In this way, "that's good of you" the rebuke of Samuel would be less harsher and Samuel would give Saul more credit...but in his (Saul's) mind, Saul really just didn't want the people to leave. Either way, what Saul did was WRONG.)

So we can see from verse 11-12 that Saul was worried. Worried about what? That he would not be able to defeat the Philistines, or basically, that God will not deliver. He did not trust in the Lord for Israel's success, deliverance, and in some sense, salvation.

What was the result? "your kingdom shall not continue"

So what can we learn from this? Is it salvation/deliverance/God's favor by works? Based on "You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you."??

I think it's the opposite.

See Saul was trying to do things on his own, instead of obeying God. I think salvation by works is similar. We are always trying to do good things to outweigh the bad as if to say, "Oh no, I am going to die, and I need to be good to go to Heaven, so I need to do good. I need to do good things so that when God sees me, He can be like, 'Oh yeah you did many good things, more good than bad, therefore, you are good.' So I need to do these things, out of my own ability, I need to FORCE these things so that I can go to Heaven" (similar to Saul).

But I think we need to RELY on God, TRUST in God, and whatever He says the plan is, let's do that, let's obey and submit and rest on that GOD WILL DELIVER. and God HAS! through His SON JESUS CHRIST, that if we have saving faith in Jesus we will be saved. Rely on God, trust God, faith in Jesus, faith in God. That's it, and our own selfish efforts (like that of Saul) are in vain and are "foolish" and disobedient.

What do you think?

Judges 6:15-18
15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” 16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” 17 And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. 18 Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”

Context: So the Israelites AGAIN sin against God and now God gave them into the hand of Midian or seven years.
So AGAIN the Israelites cry out to the LORD. and AGAIN God helps them out by sending a prophet, and then calls and sends Gideon to save Israel.

The above is their conversation.

One quick thing that struck me was when Gideon responds to God by saying "I am the least in my Father's house." This kinda reminded me of

1 Timothy 1:15
15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

and

Proverbs 3:34
34 Toward the scorners he is scornful,
but to the humble he gives favor.

and man I can't find the verses that I'm looking for. help?

But anyways, I found it interesting that Gideon responded in such a way. It reminds me of the way Moses was chosen. Or even David. and Paul.

Check. that. out.

It seems like all the time, God is always choosing the weak for His work. I forgot where I heard this, but if you feel like you are too weak to be included in a big part of God's plan, you are a good candidate. God always chooses the weak, the runts, the inadequate, the what-the-where-did-this-guy-come-from-I-had-no-idea-that-God-would-use-this-guy-cause-he-is-a-weakling.

But why? God's glory. That is always the answer haha but I think when God uses the weak to accomplish His will, it says much about who God is.

1) The weak relies more on God because that person is inadequate and needs God, the ultimate source of strength and wisdom.
2) God using something small, to do something BIG, makes God look glorious.

It's like say there are two men that needed to build like laptops or something. One dude uses metals, and he uses a laptop building kit that has all the transistors and resistors and capacitors and all those technical components to build his laptop. Boom he builds it. Then another dude goes into his garbage can and is like "hmm this'll do." He uses literal trash. Literally. Trash. and then boom he builds his laptop. and not only that but this laptop (made out of literal trash) is better, faster, stronger.

Props to that guy who made it out of literal trash right?

God uses weak people... Not props, but PRAISE, and WORSHIP, and EXALTATION, and ADORATION. I think when God makes use of little people, it makes much of God, brings all the attention to God/ brings Him glory.

What do you think?

Story...
In this passage, Israel goes to Ai and get defeated...and why? because God was not with them in battle. God was no longer with them because of the sin of Achan.

"Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. 12 Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. [1] I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. 13 Get up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says the Lord, God of Israel, “There are devoted things in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.”

We need God....
See that's what happens when we are trying to do things on our own. When we try to do things on our own, without relying on God, it ends in our destruction. That goes for everything. If you are trying to get people to think you are cool, it won't work. If you are trying to get a job, it won't work. But most importantly, it works with salvation. If you are trying to work your way into Heaven. It will not work. It will not work unless you rely on God. Put faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus alone.

Sin...
Our sin is soo bad, only God can save us. How bad is sin? There is punishment..Just look at what happened to Achan. He got stoned. Israel got destroyed. God was no longer with them. God is that holy, He can't tolerate sin. And why, sin is a belittling of God. Saying, "You know God, I don't need you, I can do it on my own. I won't trust in you because I just don't." That's a belittling of God. That is not relying on God. God can't save you? God can't take care of you? Watch out...

Faith...
Does this mean then we need to follow all these rules in order for God to be on our side? No, but it does show how HOLY God is. God says, "Consecrate yourselves" So we need to be be clean, consecrated to God. But how can we be consecrated, the power of Christ working in us. We need to rely on God for this. Only through true faith in Jesus can we be saved. Only through true genuine faith in Jesus can we be justified. Only through true genuine faith in Jesus can we be sanctified.

Reliance on God...
Where do we get that faith from? Through God working in us, we can't force ourselves to love God. But God can work in us. So see it's total dependence on God.

What can we learn from Joshua 7?
1. God is HOLY - basis comes from the fact that when Israel sinned, God was no longer with them. So God commanded them to consecrate themselves. They need to be clean and holy, that's the only way we can be in God's presence. And to further emphasize that, God had to purge evil and destroy sin, which is observed through the stoning of Achan.
2. Sin is when we belittle God and when we do not give Him the glory that He is due - basis comes from when Achan did what he wanted by stealing and lying
3. Without God, we are nothing, we are devoted for destruction - basis when Israel was defeated at Ai
4. We find rest and peace in the complete work of Christ. Full reliance on God, full reliance on the work of Jesus (faith), and full reliance for the ability of having faith in Jesus.

Joshua 6
The Fall of Jericho

Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in. 2 And the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. 3 You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. 4 Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. 5 And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, [1] and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.”

I thought that this was interesting. It seems as thought that God always has a plan, and then he commands His people. In this case, the Israelites already defeated Jericho, in God's perspective. Then God tells Israel to go through this process..and when they do go through it and obey, then Jericho gets destroyed.

HOW DOES JERICHO GET DESTROYED? IT IS TOTALLY OBVIOUS THAT IT IS THE WORK OF GOD!!

We all know that anything happens because of God. But how about when I worked so hard and studied for my exam? Then I did well? It kinda seems that I played some part in it doesn't it...but we know for sure that it was God, it was because of Him. Yet it isn't so obvious in that case is it?
But how about this part with Jericho? The Israelites march around, blow horns, and shout and Jericho falls. Now that's pretty obvious that it was a work of God right?

Don't you agree?

I think it is like that with our salvation.

In God's perspective, Jericho was already defeated// In God's perspective we are justified.

God commanded the Israelites and they obey despite the difficulties and trials that may come// God commands us to obey and
repent and we obey and repent despite the difficulties and trials that may come

The Israelites have faith and total reliance on the Words of God// We have faith and total reliance on the Jesus Christ

Jericho falls and it is a work of God not of the Israelites...obviously...// We are saved and justified and it is a complete work of Christ....obviously...obviously? yes...saved by grace through faith.

What do you guys think?

Success in life...

Where is the emphasis?

Some Christians think that God will bless them (grant them success in life) in any aspect that they set their heart to.

Since it says in the Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart."

"If I want to be a good business leader, then God will bless me (grant me success). As long as I include God in my plans, then everything will be alright. Alright with God on my side. Who can be against me if I got God on my side?"

VS

"If God wants me to be a good business leader, then God will bless me. Even if I go try to be a business leader and I fail, God allowed it to happen, and I will praise Him because God was magnified in that situation. To Him I give glory. It's all about God and His glory. God is sovereign. It's not about the things that I want to do, it's about doing the will of the Father and being included in His plans. I want to be on God's side and I want to be included in His plans"

This post has nothing to do with the snow that we have been having. Although I like it right? haha no school for a week = longer winter break

I was trying to write about how I was playing with fire and how it got me thinking about how hot it was that I pulled back my finger and then just thinking about hell, how hot that would be, and thinking what it would be like if I was eternally separated from God... there must be a lot of pain there...=/

But instead I'll just talk about something that I actually think about a lot. haha

----------------skip to here if lazy...haha


Back in the day my youth group used to be a close group of people. Or still are a close group of people. I guess since I am always at college, I am not as aware of how they are doing or what they are doing =/. Trying to be close with them like in their "clique" was one of my main struggles before. They would always do things without me and I would never be invited to go with them places. And I guess what hurt me the most was that when newcomers were around, my youth group would be so nice to the new comers and all and invite them to wherever they were going after church.

Just some scenarios, after Bible study one time, everyone kept saying to each other, "are you going to so and so's place?" or like "hey how are you getting to so and so's place?" and it just hurt me so much at that moment that I didn't know what they were talking about or where they were going, and they would kinda be secretive about it. Like I would just hear small bits of it. And even the new comers (at that time) knew about it. Looking back it seems kinda dumb right? But I wish I was included with what they were doing.

It was kinda hurtful to me, like I felt maybe I wasn't as sociable, or something was wrong with me. Maybe I'm awkward or something like that. Like how come they never ask me how I'm doing? or how come they never invite me to whatever they are doing? But they invite the newcomers and hang out with the new comers all the time? And they always have sleepovers without telling me? They never take me out, but they take these other people out that they just met?

I kinda got bitter about it and stuff and they would always be like, (talking to me) "How you doin buddy? You ok? Why do you look sad all the time? Ok well see you man!" and then right after (talking to each other) "so who you riding with? I'ma ride with blah blah blah..." And I was just like (to myself), "I'm sad because you guys never seem to care about me."

But I guess it was just like that because I was always sad looking and being bitter, but I mean I really put in the effort to get to know them and everything. I really reached out to them and tried to talk to them and everything.

That was one of my main struggles, I mean I don't really care much now. I kinda accepted that they are that way. But they invite me to things now, except I have too much school work to go. I go when I can hahaha...

What have I learned from this? Honestly, I don't want to make up things, but basically, I didn't really learn much from it...hahah

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I learned how to appreciate it more when people reached out to me. When Brendon called me to ask me how if I wanted to study with him or that we should hang out, that really meant a lot to me, cuz it wasn't something that I usually got from other people. And just the people at KCM, when they reached out to me and showed me care, I really felt loved. When they suprised me on my birthday, I couldn't help but smile haha. No one ever did those kinda things for me before. That's one of the main reasons why I stayed at KCM.

Also another thing is my friends from high school and new friends in college. They really mean a lot to me, even if it doesn't seem like that sometimes, cuz I'm usually quiet. Am I? haha sometimes I feel like I either talk to much, or talk not that much. But when I am really tired or things are tough, I just like to relax and hear them talk and watch them do weird stuff haha. I love them so =] Also they always call me and stuff, and ask me to visit them or eat with them or just anything. I didn't get that from my youth group, until now I guess.

But now I appreciate it more when people take an effort to get to know me. I just been so used to this pokemon world where I press A to everyone and do all the talking and keep every conversation and every friendship alive. When people do that instead of me, whether it be at KCM, or my friends, or at the fellowship at OIL, I appreciate it more.

Sometimes, things happen.

Oohhh

My whole life is Yours

I give it all

Surrendered to Your Name

and forever I will pray

have Your way

have Your WAY!

Forever I will pray, have Your way O Lord, please have mercy and give ear to my words O Lord. Consider my meditation. Pour out Your grace and change my heart. I am relying on You alone for this for I am weak. To be with You, to praise You. Whatever that takes, whatever the circumstances...HAVE YOUR WAY!

Hmm, I just came back from OIL...One In Love conference over at Montrose, Pennsylvania.